


These Shadows Start to Feel Like Home

by obaewan-kenobi (bartontyrells39)



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - The Walking Dead Fusion, Blood, Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, F/M, Gen, Guns, Loss of Limbs, Non-Graphic Violence, Shooting, Zombie Apocalypse, Zombies
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-21
Updated: 2017-04-03
Packaged: 2018-07-16 11:29:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 19,390
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7266343
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bartontyrells39/pseuds/obaewan-kenobi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After being shot, Daisy Johnson wakes up to find that the world is no longer as it was. With the dead walking, the people she meets could be the family she never had. {The Walking Dead AU}</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Days Gone Bye

**Author's Note:**

> Hi! Thanks for checking out my new fic. I've got quite a lot of it planned out but I'm not sure how often I'll post. Bear with this chapter, it's mostly an introduction to the world. There'll be a lot more characters in the next one. Some of the characters won't be in it for a while, but I saw them as being more similar to a character that comes later. I'll mostly be keeping the villains from The Walking Dead, so there will be characters from that show as well, but for the most part it's all aos. Thanks again for checking this out.  
> The title is based on a line from the song "What am I Becoming" by POP ETC

“Where are we even going?” Ward asked from the driver’s seat, eyeing the clock on the dash and noticing they had left Atlanta over an hour ago.

“You’ll see,” Daisy said. She checked her phone; nothing new on the outbreak she had hoped to catch a glimpse of.

“Can you at least tell me what exit I’m getting off at?”

“Nope.” She smiled. “Not until we get there.”

“Whatever this is, it had better be good.”

“It is, trust me. You think I’d make you drive this far north of the city for nothing? It’s good.”

“Fine,” he resigned. His head turned to watch the steadily increasing amount of cars going the opposite direction. “Why is there so much southbound traffic?” Daisy set down her phone as she gazed out the window and saw several parts of what looked like road kill on the shoulder of the road. Ward was still looking at the opposing traffic when she noticed the wall of brake lights in front of them.

“Grant, stop!” she yelled. He slammed on the brakes and stopped inches away from the car in front of them. “What the hell?” She shifted in her seat to try to get a glimpse of what was going on, but there was nothing but cars as far as the eye could see.

“It doesn’t look like we’re going anywhere anytime soon,” Ward resigned, and put the car in park. Daisy opened the car’s sunroof, unbuckled her seat belt, and stood up, trying to see exactly what had stopped all the cars. She noticed several others were doing the same.

“I see sirens up ahead. At least three different vehicles.”

“What?” Ward asked, gently pulling her back down.

“I’m going to check it out.” She opened the door and swung her feet onto the pavement.

“Hey,” he stopped her, putting his hand on her shoulder.

“Yeah?” she turned back to look him in the eye. He kissed her and pressed her phone into her hands.

“Get something good,” he said, pulling away and smiling. She nodded, got out, closed the door behind her and began walking down the dotted white line in the center of the highway. Against her better judgment, she hoped that beyond the flashing lights, was one of the sick people that she had only read about in the forums, that could only be seen in in the videos that the government didn’t want people to see, infected with the disease spreading across the country that the regular news didn’t cover. She wanted to see one of the sick people, but she had no idea what that would mean.

As she neared the roadblock, she noticed a crowd of other curious and impatient drivers standing near all the police cars. Something told her there would be no way to get to the front of the group, so she headed to the left between two stopped cars, crept through the grassy median around some cop cars, and crouched in front of one of them. She paused to observe the chaos around her. There were three cop cars in an V shape, and where she was at one tip of the v, there was an ambulance at the other. Ahead of her was a massive car wreck, with more cars than she could count. She peered around the headlight of the cop car and the sound of a gunshot made her stiffen. Her phone slipped out of her hand and skittered across the asphalt.

Some of it she wished she couldn’t see. There were sick ones, half a dozen at least. They looked like they had been in the car crash, or even caused it, and they were coming at the cops. The cops were shooting at them, but nothing apart from headshots stopped them. The other shots barely even slowed them down. The one nearest to her was the one that frightened her the most. They had taken no notice of her, as its back was to her, but she could see that the sick person was, to her horror, eating someone. She only had a moment to register what she was seeing before a bullet took the sick person out and she felt a faint spatter of blood land on her face. She turned back immediately, catching her breath. It took all she had not to make a sound. She had to get her phone, and get out of there. As she slowly turned to see where it had landed, she noticed an EMT had begun placing the victim into a body bag.

She began crawling forward, not caring anymore if someone saw her. This was definitely way more than she had bargained for. The phone was several feet away, almost directly behind the EMT. She knelt in front of it and lifted it up to examine it. The screen was cracked beyond repair, and all attempts to turn it on failed. Ward would be thrilled. A scream from the EMT startled her. The victim he had been putting in a body bag had leaned up and torn a large chunk of flesh from his throat. There were more gunshots, and suddenly a shooting pain in Daisy’s side knocked her back.

* * *

 

Everything was a blur. Daisy knew she was in a hospital, but it was all hazy. She had no idea how long it had been. She couldn’t remember much after she had been shot, just the hospital ceiling and a few muddled faces. Before was even worse. She remembered getting out of Ward’s truck and hiding behind the cop car, but whatever she had seen there was gone.

Sometimes the faces would talk, but Daisy couldn’t understand what they were saying. She faded in and out, until one face she didn’t recognize started speaking and Daisy heard what they were saying.

“Daisy?” the face asked gently, with a man’s voice. “Your name is Daisy right? A medic at the scene asked you, and it sounded like you said Daisy, but you were pretty out of it. Still are, probably. I don’t know why I haven’t come in to see you sooner. I guess I was waiting until you woke up, but I couldn’t wait any longer.” The face took a deep breath. “I’m the officer that shot you. It was an accident, I swear. So much was happening, that body just… I’m sorry, is what I came here to say. If you don’t wake up, I don’t…” He shifted and Daisy saw that he was holding a vase of fresh flowers. “I got you these. Daisies. I suppose I was trying to be funny.” He took another deep breath. “You can pursue legal action if you want, I don’t care. I deserved to get suspended. I guess what I mean is that I couldn’t live with myself if you never woke up.” There were a few noises, Daisy couldn’t tell what they were, but they were loud. The face perked his head up, and disappeared from Daisy’s view.

“The flowers are nice,” Daisy managed after a moment. She figured if what happened was that bad, he had been just as afraid as she had been. “What’s your name?” After there was no response, she weakly looked around the small hospital room. All the machines were off, and she was alone. Sunlight streamed through the window. “Hello?” she called out. Still no response. She examined herself. They had put her into a white tank top and pajama shorts, with a hospital gown that was split down the front. She lifted up the tank top and saw the bandage on the right side of her stomach where she had been shot. As she pulled off the wires attaching her to the dead machines, she saw the daisies the man had brought her. They weren’t fresh anymore; they were wilted and dead. There were petals covering the table beneath them. How long ago had they been given to her?

She grabbed the nearby IV cart and attempted to stand. She was on the floor before she realized, her side throbbing.

“Nurse, help,” she called. Still, no one came. She tried a few more times before making another attempt to stand. It took her longer than she was proud of to make it to the attached bathroom. When she saw her own reflection in the mirror, she barely recognized herself. Her hair, which had been a few inches below her chin, now brushed her shoulders, and her face was paler and thinner than she remembered. As she stared in awe, her eyes drifted down to the sink and she was overcome with how unbelievably thirsty she was. She turned the handle and stuck her mouth under the steady stream of cold, clear water, drinking for what felt like an eternity.

Once she felt like she had drank enough, she wandered into the hallway in hopes of finding someone, but it was just as empty as her room. Daisy had never seen a hospital so filthy. There was debris all over the floor, and she could feel the dirt beneath her bare feet as she approached the abandoned nurses station. When she picked up the phone to try to call for help, there was no dial tone. She tried to reassure herself, but she couldn’t think of any situation where a hospital in this state was good. In a small basket on the desk, she found a pack of matches. She lit one to make sure they were good, and quickly blew it out when it singed her fingers.

The hallway she was in came to an L shape, with a hallway at its end going left and a door on the right. Fluorescent lights flickered as she peered through the window in the door. The corridor beyond was in worse shape than the one she had just been down. As she realized what lay beyond, she froze. Part of the ceiling was falling down, and there was a body on the ground. She had been a girl near Daisy’s age, with pretty blonde hair and a light spattering of blood on her face. The rest of her was half gone, as if she had been consumed by something. What had done this to the girl, Daisy could not say. She hurriedly about faced and started walking again.

As she made her way toward the opposite door, her hand drifted to her mouth. There were bullet holes in the wall, and blood pools on the floor. The ceiling had completely fallen in, and she had to avoid the wires and rubble hanging down from the gaping hole. It wasn’t until she was a few feet away from the doors that she realized someone had written something on them. The left read “DON’T OPEN” and the right “DEAD INSIDE”. There was a board through the door handles, and a chain with a padlock. Daisy barely had time to question it when the door strained against the lock and fingers accompanied by growls and moans appeared in the space between the doors. Daisy fell back half in shock, half in fear. The moans didn’t stop, so she scrambled back to her feet and through the door she had just noticed on her left. She noticed the elevator, and pressed the button. Nothing happened, but she had expected as much. To the right of the elevator was a door she realized led to the stairwell. She gave it a shove.

When the door closed behind her, she was submerged in darkness. She lit one of the matches she had acquired earlier and began her descent. A few matches later, she arrived at a door on what she believed was the ground floor. She lit the last match and held it towards the top of the door. It illuminated a dark exit sign before burning her fingers. She let if fall to the floor, and pushed the door open.

The sunlight was almost blinding. As she stepped outside, her hand flew straight to her face, the back of it covering her nose and mouth. She had never smelled anything so foul in her life. She could barely see what was around her, but it seemed the only way to go was down a staircase to her right. Despite her eyes not yet having adjusted enough to see what lay at the bottom, she resigned to head down them, holding tightly to the handrail. By the time she reached the end, her eyes had adjusted and she was aghast. She was in the loading bay, and there were bodies wrapped in white sheets everywhere. They were laid neatly in rows, and she had nowhere to walk but in between them. Flies buzzed around her feet as she forced herself towards the end of the driveway, and it took all she had not to cry. She had no idea what to think, or what could have happened there to cause so many deaths. Once she had a clear path out , she stumbled as fast as she could up a grassy hill to the parking lot of the building next door.

What she saw at the top only increased the terror she was feeling. What appeared to be an army camp, complete with tents and a helicopter, lay abandoned. There were body bags here, too, but not nearly as many. The building behind the camp was destroyed. Her hand clutched her side as she ambled past the helicopter and into the town.

She followed the road until she saw a sign for the highway she knew led to Atlanta. Despite not knowing what town she was in or how far from Atlanta she was, she knew that was where she had to go. It was only then it struck her that she had no way to get there. Another sign at the intersection she stood at pointed toward the local police station, and she remembered the cop at the hospital. He would help her get there, or at least know where she could get a car to drive there. She began toward the station, and noticed a bicycle lying in the grass in the park she had been walking beside. As she approached it, she saw there was a body in the grass. Its back was to her, and she couldn’t help but stare. It was only a torso, no legs, but there were organs and bones coming out of the bottom, and it was very decayed. As Daisy lifted the bike, the body stirred, and turned towards her. Daisy fell back and gaped in horror. She could hardly comprehend what she was seeing. The thing reached towards her, growling, but was still feet away from her. Daisy pulled the bicycle back up and hurried away toward the station.

She couldn’t remember the last time she rode a bicycle, but desperate times called for desperate measures. The bike made it a few blocks through a quaint neighborhood before the chain on it broke and she was back on foot. After a few more yards, she was feeling weak, and her side hurt, so she pulled up her tank top slightly so it wasn’t as tight.

She felt the shovel before she saw it. It didn’t hit her very hard, but at this point it didn’t take much to knock her over. The young boy stood over her with a huge grin.

“Daddy, I got one!” he shouted. Out of the corner of her eye Daisy saw someone approaching them. There was a gunshot and the person nearing fell.

“Help,” she breathed. A man had appeared next to the boy.

“Ace, you know they don’t talk,” he reminded his son. He examined Daisy. “What’s the bandage for?” He asked, but Daisy couldn’t speak. The man raised a gun and pointed it at her. “I asked you a question. What’s your wound? You tell me, or I _will_ kill you.” Daisy tried to answer, but everything went black.

* * *

 

She woke up tied to a bed. The boy from before was standing near the bed, holding a baseball bat. He appeared to be six, maybe seven. Much too young to have that look on his face, like he was willing to _use_ the bat, like he was afraid of everything. She looked down at her stomach and noticed that her bandage had been changed. The man entered and sat in a chair next to the bed.

“You didn’t tell me how you got that,” he said, pointing to her bandage.

“Gunshot,” Daisy replied, shifting uncomfortably. She had no idea what was going on, and that was before she was tied a strange bed.

“Is that all?” he pressed.

“A gunshot isn’t enough?” she shot back. He smiled.

“I ask, you answer. It’s common courtesy, right?”

“Fine.”

“Were you bit?”

“Bit by what?”

“One of them.”

“One of… what? No, I wasn’t bit by anything. I told you. I was shot.” She froze as he lifted his hand towards her face.

“What are you doing?” she demanded.

“Relax, will you?” He gently felt her forehead with the back of his hand. “If you were bit, the fevers would have come by now,” he muttered. His hand drifted down to his waist and he pulled out a knife. He held it near her face. “You try anything, I’ll kill you,” he promised.

Daisy tensed. “I won’t,” she insisted. The man studied her face and used the knife to cut the ties. She massaged her wrists as he stood up.

“I’m Mike. My son is Ace,” he gestured toward the boy.

“Daisy,” she replied.

“Sorry about all that. You come out when you’re ready.” He put his hand on his son’s back and led him out of the room.

* * *

 

When Daisy emerged from the bedroom, she had traded her meager hospital gown for a warm blanket that almost engulfed her. Mike and Ace were at a dinner table, dishing out their meal. They paused as she entered. The only light came from a few candles on the table and a couple of gas lamps; otherwise it was dark. She assumed it was night, but there were blankets covering all the windows. Instead of heading left to the table, she decided to investigate the window and began straight ahead. She passed two single mattresses pushed together.

“Is this your house?” she asked, looking back at them. Ace had sat down, but Mike’s eyes hadn’t left her.

“It was empty when we got here,” he replied. She nodded, not quite sure what happened that they had to be here in this situation. She approached the window, and attempted to peer out a tear in one of the blankets.

“Don’t,” Mike urged, “They’ll see the light. There’s more out there than usual.” He sat. “I shouldn’t have shot that walker earlier. The noise just makes more of them come. It was stupid.”

“The person behind me?” Daisy asked. Mike nodded. “You just… shot that man.”

“That wasn’t a man,” Ace replied. Mike sat down opposite him.

“It was a walker,” Mike explained. Daisy swayed, still feeling weak. She had no idea what he meant. He gestured toward a third chair at the table.

“Sit down before you fall down,” he insisted, and dished some food in the empty bowl at the chair in front of Daisy. She took a seat between the pair of them, not sure what to say.

“Do you even know what’s going on?” Mike asked after a few minutes of silence, noting her confused expression and the rate at which she was devouring her food.

“I don’t know what town this is; I was driving with my boyfriend when I got shot. I don’t know how long ago that was or much about how it happened. I woke up in the hospital by myself. It was abandoned, I guess.” She shrugged, and took another bite.

“Do you know about the dead?” He glanced at Ace. Daisy swallowed and her expression turned grim.

“I saw the corpses outside the hospital. There were so many. How does something like that--”

Mike cut her off. “Not the dead they put down. The dead they didn’t. The walkers. If I didn’t shoot that walker before, it would have tried to eat you. It might have succeeded.” He examined Daisy’s half awe-struck, half skeptical expression. “You haven’t heard any of this before, have you?”

“Before, there were rumors. They said there were sick people doing the unthinkable. They were just sick. But… they’re not? These are corpses? Dead people, walking, eating the living? If you’re fucking with me…”

“I wish I was. The worst thing, though, no matter what, is getting bit. That’s why I had to tie you up earlier. Take those precautions. When you’re bit, you get a fever, and you die. Then you come back.”

* * *

 

After dinner, Ace laid down on the bed and rested his head on a pillow, and Mike sat next to him, leaning against the wall protectively. Daisy made herself comfortable on a mattress at the base of an armchair.

“Are you a cop?” Ace asked her. She smiled.

“Why would you think I’m a cop?” she replied. Ace shrugged.

“No, I’m not a cop. I use my computer to help share information that bad people want to keep a secret. Stuff like what’s going on right now.”

“I don’t think anyone knew what this was until it was too late,” Mike added. They were all startled by a car alarm going off. Ace jerked up.

“It’s okay,” Mike reassured him, putting his arm around him. “Walker probably knocked into it,” he said louder to Daisy. “It’s happened before. Here, help me turn the lights off.” He stood. Daisy turned off the gas lantern nearest her, and Ace did the same. Once it was completely dark, Mike peered through the tear in the blanket. Daisy stood next to him.

“Yep, same one as last time,” he observed. “There, you can see it.” He pointed and moved aside so Daisy could see. She stood on her tiptoes and lifted the torn blanket. Down the street a ways, a blue car’s lights flashed as the alarm still blared, and she got her first real look at some walkers. It was in that moment she was grateful for Mike stopping her from stealing a look earlier, when the lights were on. There were dozens out there, milling about. Ace, who was at another, much lower hole, tensed as one particular walker emerged from behind a tree.

“She’s here,” he whispered.

“Stop looking. Get back into bed,” Mike told him. Ace backed away and all but collapsed onto the bed, sobbing. Mike sat next to him, gently stroking his back and telling him to be quiet.

Daisy watched as the dead woman slowly crossed the front yard, and approached the front porch. Daisy followed her to the door, taking advantage of the peephole left exposed between the slats of wood nailing the door shut. She heard Mike urging Ace to cry into a pillow to avoid attracting more of them as the dead woman seemed to examine the door. Daisy almost jumped when the doorknob started jiggling. She stepped back and sat at the foot of the bed.

“She’s my sister,” Mike said. “Or she was. Mindy. She died in the other room. Her fever, it was like asphalt on a sunny day. Almost burned my skin every time I felt her head. I’d never felt so helpless. We were heading to Atlanta, when she was bit. I should have put her down, the moment she turned, but… I couldn’t.” He exhaled deeply, and for a few moments they silently watched the doorknob, alarm still sounding.

“Daddy, I’m scared,” Ace whispered once his sobbing had died down.

“Shh, don’t worry. We’re safe in here,” Mike whispered back. “Hey, what are we?”

“We’re a team,” Ace replied.

“That’s right, Ace. That’s right.” He pulled his son closer. He glanced at Daisy and noticed a peculiar expression on her face. “What is it?”

“I have an idea,” she said.

* * *

 

Daisy pushed the door open and the three of them burst into the morning sunlight.

“Are we _sure_ they’re dead?” Daisy asked one last time. It felt good to be wearing normal clothes again. She had found a pair of jeans and a purple t-shirt in a bedroom upstairs that fit her, and a pair of Converse. In addition to the new clothes, she held the baseball bat Ace had lent her.

“They’re dead. The part that comes back, it’s just a tiny bit of the brain. That’s why nothing takes them out unless you get their head,” Mike explained. Daisy nodded. She stepped off the front porch and headed toward the street, Mike and Ace not far behind. A walker that had been roaming the yard neared her, growling.

She held up the bat and swung. It hit the walker’s face with a loud smack, but she clearly hadn’t hit it hard enough. A few more swings brought the walker to its knees. By the time it was on the ground, so was she, breathing heavily and clutching her side.

“Are you sure about this?” Mike asked.

“Yeah.” She examined the blood on her shirt. “It can’t be far. Help will be there.” Mike shook his head.

“You’re the first living person we’ve seen since we got here.”

“It’s worth a shot,” she insisted, staggering back to her feet. Mike shrugged and unlocked a nearby car with the keys in his hand that Daisy had only just noticed.

“You guys have a _car_?” she asked. Mike laughed as he got in the driver’s side. Daisy sat in the passenger seat, still awe-struck.

“What are you guys still doing here?”

“I don’t know,” Mike admitted as he started the engine. “We were heading to Atlanta when Mindy got bit. We stopped here, and… I don’t know. Never got back on the road. All the traffic towards Atlanta was pretty intimidating before we got out of it, but after it just seemed insurmountable.”

“What’s in Atlanta?” she asked, surprised that as many people as he described had the same destination in mind as she did.

“A refugee center,” he said. “There were announcements for it on the radio and TV, back when they were still transmitting. They said it had military protection, food, shelter. Everyone was going there. They said it was the safest place to be.”

“And that disease place is there,” Ace piped up from the back seat, fiddling with the large duffel bag on his lap and its twin next to him.

“The Center for Disease Control, yeah,” Mike remembered, “They were trying to fix this thing, last I heard.”

“Left here,” Daisy said, noticing the sign hidden behind some overgrown bushes. As they pulled into a spot, she noticed there were a few police cruisers in the parking lot, which she prematurely deemed as a good sign.

“What do you expect to find here?” Mike asked.

“Help,” she replied as she hopped out and walked to the door, still holding Ace’s bat, just in case. Mike followed her, with Ace close behind. The door was unlocked, but it was dark inside. Mike nudged her arm with a flashlight, obviously more prepared and less optimistic than she was. She grabbed it and used it to probe around the lobby. There was no movement, so she continued into the next room, and the next, until they reached the sunlit locker room. There were windows at the top of the walls, and individual private shower stalls.

“There’s no one here,” she resigned, stunned. Mike opened his mouth to point out that he had been right the whole time, but decided not to. Instead he walked closer to the shower.

“You don’t suppose this place still has running water, do you?” he asked in an attempt to distract her.

“The last time I was at a police station, a big storm hit, and the power in the surrounding neighborhood went out, but the lights and water at the station were still on. I asked one of the cops who worked there, and he told me there was a separate power, water, and propane system at most police stations.” She approached one of the showers and turned it on. “If this is one of them…” She stuck her hand under the water. “Pilot’s still on.” She smiled.

“Hot water?” Ace asked, grinning.

“I’m not going to ask why you were at a police station last time.” Mike shook his head and smiled.

“If you are implying that I was arrested,” Daisy began, “then you… are right. _But_ it was during a low point and it wasn’t that bad. It was a one time thing, and I was only there overnight because the storm caused a bunch of road closings.” She glanced at Mike’s expression. “I can tell you’re judging me.”

“I’m not. Just sounds like you’ve had a pretty crazy life, what with that and getting shot and all.”

“Getting crazier every day,” she said, stepping into the shower and closing the curtain behind her.

Daisy had never felt better after a shower in her life. After washing however many months of filth off of her, she almost felt like a new person. She had made sure they all packed a change of clothes for this very reason. Now wearing a red tank with grey jeans, she sat on a bench lacing the converse. Mike sat down next to her.

“Why Atlanta?” he asked.

“What?”

“You’ve had your sights set there even before you found out about the refugee center. What’s there for you, that the end of the world isn’t enough to keep you away?”

“It’s not the end of the world…”

“Tell that to the walking corpses outside.”

She took a deep breath. “It sounds stupid, but that’s where my van is. My van is kind of my life. I ran away from home when I was a teenager, and my van has been the only consistent thing since. Nothing’s stayed by my side nearly as long as my van has. Not even Ward.” She sounded slightly peeved when she said the last sentence.

“Ward?” he asked, standing up.

“My boyfriend. Or at least he was. He was with me when I got shot. Well, not _with_ me per say, but he wasn’t far. There was no sign of him the entire time I was in the hospital.”

“Something could have happened to him.”

“I guess. Ward is exceptionally good at watching his own ass, to the extent of letting others take the fall for him. Frequently.”

“That’s not why you were arrested, was it?” Mike sounded genuinely concerned.

“No. He’s the one who bailed me out, actually. Took me in. Saved me, I guess. He was good to me, but sometimes I felt like the only one.” She sighed.

* * *

 

Checking the armory was Mike’s idea. The room was unlocked, but not empty, as if someone had come with something specific in mind and left in a hurry. He started loading guns into a bag, and put a few into another bag.

“What’s the second bag for?” Daisy asked.

“You,” he said.

“I’ve never used a gun in my life. I certainly don’t need that many.”

“You might. It’s a ways to Atlanta.” He held a semi-automatic pistol in front of her. “Here,” he pointed at the back, “this is the safety. Turn it off _only_ when you need to shoot something.” He pressed a button, and the clip detached. “This is the magazine release. You put new bullets in here. This is a .45. That means the caliber of bullets you need in order for it to work is .45.”

“I know what .45 means,” she retorted.

“Do you know how to shoot?”

“No,” she replied sheepishly.

“This is the slide. Pull it back to get a round into the chamber. I think you know the rest.”

“Point and pull the trigger?” she guessed. He handed it to her and began loading boxes of ammo into the bags.

“You’ll get the hang of it. This place is pretty secluded, you can practice outside.” He zipped up both bags and handed one to Daisy. “Come on, Ace.” They left the armory, and Daisy did a quick sweep of the place to see if she could find anything else of use. Mike was waiting for her by the door. As they re-emerged into the sunlight, Mike handed her the gun.

“You sure you’re not coming to Atlanta?” she asked him, squinting in the sun.

“We’ll be a few days after you. Got a few things to take care of before we go. Still have to clear all of our shit out of that house, for one.”

“I understand,” she replied, and pulled out a walkie-talkie. “Found a pair of these in there. There’s one battery. “Every morning at dawn, I’ll turn mine on for a few minutes. That way you can catch up to me.” Mike smiled.

“How do you plan on getting there?” he asked, taking the talkie and walking towards his car.

“Windows on the cop car are cracked open. Shouldn’t be hard to get in and hotwire it.”

“Is _that_ how you got arrested?”

“Shut up and show me how to shoot this thing.” Daisy held up the gun he had given her.

“Hold on.” He put his bag in the trunk of the car and helped Ace get in the car. “Stay there until I tell you, okay?”

“Okay.” Ace nodded. Mike closed the door and walked back to Daisy.

“Do you remember what I told you?” he asked her.

“Yes,” she replied. She did all he had said, raised the gun, then lowered it. “I need a target.” Mike opened his mouth to reply, but abruptly closed it when the sound of groans came from behind them. They both turned to see a walker wearing a police uniform approaching from behind a fence

“Will that work?” Mike asked. Daisy nodded and approached the fence.

“Wait…” She studied the walker’s face. It was familiar to her; though the last time she had seen it, it wasn’t as decayed. Half of his teeth were showing where lips had once been, and Daisy turned back to Mike.

“He’s the one that shot me,” she told him.

“Wouldn’t that make you _want_ to shoot him? Besides, he’s already dead. You’d be doing him a favor.”

“Would I?”

“If you aren’t feeling up to it now, you can wait until there’s one that isn’t safely behind a fence.”

“Fine.” She turned back toward the dead cop. There was about ten feet between them, she guessed. After checking to make sure the gun was loaded, she turned the safety off and raised it with both hands. She steadied her aim and pulled the trigger. The kickback was more than she had anticipated, but the shot hit its mark. The cop flew backwards and landed hard on the pavement.

“Not bad.” Mike approached her. “You have to be careful. When there’s one or two of them, they’re not so bad. But in groups, they’re a hell of a lot more to take on.”

“I can imagine.” She had little to say after what she had just done. Mike studied her contrite expression and the pair of them headed towards his car.

“Take care of yourself,” he said as he climbed into the drivers seat, started the engine, and rolled down the windows.

“You too,” she replied, with something of a smile and moved to the backseat window. “Keep an eye on your dad for me, okay, Ace?” He nodded vigorously, smiling. Mike caught her eye one last time, and they exchanged a silent look as he drove away.

The cop car was hardly a challenge. She had been a teenager the last time she had done anything like this, but the car was practically begging to be stolen. Who would try to steal a police car in front of a police station, right? Since the windows were cracked, she just bent the antenna and used it to unlock the door. After that, she just hotwired it and hoped against hope the alarm wouldn’t go off. She got lucky. The engine started without a hitch, although it appeared the gas gauge was broken and she could run out at any time. The thought did not comfort her.

She drove back to the intersection where she had seen the signs for Atlanta. As she did, she passed the park where she had found the broken bicycle, and decided to stop the car. The place she had found it was empty, so she continued deeper into the park. She strode through the green grass until she found what she was looking for. The walker she hand encountered before had crawled its way into a large clearing toward the center of the park. Now that she had more understanding of what it was, she still felt fear, but now she also felt pity. She couldn’t comprehend what had happened to this girl. Daisy crouched near her, just out of the walker’s arm’s reach. She was surprised when she felt her eyes watering. The walker turned to look at Daisy.

“I’m sorry that this happened to you,” Daisy said. She pulled out the gun Mike had given her and held it with both hands as she had back at the police station. The walker reached her arm towards Daisy, and the sound of the gunshot echoed through the empty park. This time the kickback knocked Daisy over. She stumbled back up and returned to the car, which she had left running. The signs led her to a long country road that was a straight shot to Atlanta.

* * *

 

A few miles down the road of flipping through static stations on the radio, Daisy decided to try the CB radio for help.

“Hello?” she said. She waited a few moments but there was no response. “Is anyone there? Can anyone hear me?”

* * *

 Kara ran to the CB in the center of the camp. “Hello? Yes, we can hear you!” she replied, kneeling at the base of the stump it was set on. A few other nearby residents gathered around.

* * *

 

Daisy waited again, but heard nothing. “I’m heading towards Atlanta. Does anyone copy?” She waited again, but there was nothing but static.

* * *

 

“We have a camp outside Atlanta! It’s safer here,” Kara informed the radio, but there was no response. She looked up at Coulson as the radio resumed its usual static. “I don’t think she could hear me. I… there was no way to warn her.” Garret approached.

“Why don’t you let me give it a shot,” he offered, and she handed him the speaker. “Hello,” he spoke into it, “Is anyone there? Please respond.” They waited, but there was no response. Coulson glanced at Rosalind and shrugged.

“She’s gone,” Garret resigned, reattaching the speaker to the radio and standing up.

“But this means there are others out there,” Rosalind declared.

“Why do you think we leave the radio on?” Garret gestured toward the stump.

“I still think we should have put signs up on 85 to warn people away. Atlanta isn’t safe anymore!”

“The people heading there expect a refuge,” Kara pointed out. “They have no idea what they’re walking into.” Garret rolled his eyes.

“We haven’t put up the signs because we don’t have _time_ ,” he reminded them.

“We should make time,” Coulson insisted.

“And how do you suppose we do that, Phil?” Garret asked. “This group is surviving on a day-to-day basis. Everyone has a job to do. Who do you propose we send to put up these signs?”

“I’d go,” Kara volunteered, “if I could use one of the cars.”

“No one goes anywhere alone. You know that.”

“Fine,” Kara huffed, and stormed back to work.

* * *

 

“Shit!” Daisy yelled as the cop car stalled. Just as she feared, it had run out of gas long before she reached Atlanta. She stepped outside and examined her surroundings. She was in the middle of farmlands; there wasn’t a house in sight. There weren’t really any other options. She picked up her bags from the backseat and began walking forward. It had barely been a few minutes when a farmhouse appeared on her left behind some trees, and she sighed in relief, picking up her pace.

It was an old white farmhouse with a wraparound porch. Daisy headed up the steps and knocked on the front door. When there was no answer, she checked inside a few windows along the porch. When she peered into the last one, she could hardly breathe. Two bodies lay on the floor with a shotgun between them, their brains blown out. On the wall behind them “God forgive us” was written in blood. She could hear the flies buzzing around them through the window. The sight of it was too much. She stumbled away from the window and off of the porch. There was a bench under a nearby tree that she sat on to catch her breath. She was coming to terms with the fact that she might have to walk the rest of the way to Atlanta when she noticed a pickup truck parked in the driveway. She hurried over to it and attempted to start it. Like the cop car that had gotten her this far, it, too, was out of gas.

That was when she heard it. She thought she had imagined it, but then she heard another one. A whinny. There was a horse in the pasture behind her, a gorgeous chestnut mare with a white stripe down her nose, and she was looking right at Daisy. This was her chance. Daisy set down her bags inside the car, got out, and approached the fence. There was a rope on the gate, so she picked it up and entered the field.

“Hey, hey,” she said gently, holding up her free hand and slowly neared the mare. “I’m not going to hurt you, don’t worry. I just need a ride to Atlanta.” The last and only time she had ridden a horse was when she dated a guy whose parents owned a farm a year or so before she met Ward. Right now, she hoped that would be enough. “I was thinking maybe we could work out an agreement. My friend Mike says there’s food and shelter there. And people. Other horses, too, probably.” Finally the horse let her put her hand on its muzzle. She loosely tied the rope around its neck and led the horse out of its pasture.

After she had gotten her bags and the horse had let her on its back, they headed slowly towards the road.

“Go easy on me,” she said when they reached it, “It’s been a while since I’ve done this.” She turned the horse back onto the road and it sped up so much she nearly fell off. “Whoa, there!” she gasped.

* * *

 

The sun was directly overhead when the Atlanta skyline spread out in front of her. Daisy rode towards the towering skyscrapers on Freedom Parkway, which was, to her surprise, completely deserted, at least going into the city. Across the median, every lane was jammed with cars, which all looked abandoned. On her right a train was in a complete wreck, and looked as though it had been that way for several weeks if not months. The whole thing gave her a bad feeling, so she urged the horse forward. Further into the city was no better. She passed a few abandoned cars, one of which looked as though it had been burned, and a bus that looked the same. The horse spooked as two walkers stirred inside the bus. Daisy attempted to calm it down.

“It’s only two,” she said as the walkers left the bus and started following her. “Nothing we can’t outrun.” As she turned the corner, she recognized Ward’s building and urged the horse toward the far alley. Sure enough, there it was. A blue van, parked against a wall behind a dumpster and seemingly undisturbed. She dismounted the horse and let it inside the lobby, since those bus walkers weren’t far behind.

The building appeared deserted, so she climbed the stairs to the second story. Hoping against hope, she knocked on the door to Ward’s apartment. She waited for a few minutes and knocked again. When there was still no reply, she stood on her toes and groped the top of the doorframe. She breathed a sigh of relief when her hands landed on Ward’s spare key. After letting herself in, she spotted the keys to her van on the kitchen counter, right where she had left them. She grabbed them and looked around the apartment for a sign of where Ward had gone, but there was nothing. There was a layer of dust on everything, as if he hadn’t been there in quite some time. In the stark bedroom, she emptied her drawer into a backpack, then headed back downstairs to let the horse back out. There was no sign of the bus walkers, so she let the horse wander as she was reunited with her home.

She was mildly offended to find a boot on the front wheel, but the people at the refugee camp would be able to help with that, surely. After she set her bags down in the van, she stopped and looked around. Where _was_ everyone? The street was completely empty and silent but for herself and the horse. Yet, there was another sound, and it was getting closer. In the windows of a nearby building, she spotted its reflection. _A helicopter._ She wasted no time. She got back on the horse and started speeding in the direction the chopper had been heading in, but lost sight of it.

Barely paying attention as she rounded the corner, she was suddenly faced with dozens, if not hundreds, of walkers. They filled the entire city block, and she didn’t waste any time trying to count them. There were too many. She rounded back as fast as she could to the other end of the street, but more of them were coming from that direction. They were closing in on her, so she rode back to her van. She rode into the alley, but before she had passed the dumpster, the horse started whinnying in pain. Some of the ones behind them had grabbed its leg, and were dragging it back, a few of them already sinking their rotting teeth into it.

Daisy, panicking, struggled off of the dying horse and into her van, locking the door behind her. She heard the dead surrounding the van, beating the sides trying to get at her. Her breathing was heavy and her mind scattered, but her first thoughts were of Mike. She had to call him, warn him the city wasn’t safe, before he and his son met the same fate she would soon face. It took a few moments to find the walkie-talkie she had acquired at the police station. She tried multiple frequencies, but there were no replies. In an attempt to drown out the sound of the walkers, she turned up the volume on the talkie. Static filled the van. All hope seemed lost. She cast the walkie-talkie aside and began to sob. That was when a very unfamiliar, very Scottish voice interrupted the static.

“Hey, you,” it said, “There in the van. You cozy in there?”


	2. Guts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After getting some much-appreciated help escaping her van, Daisy meets a new group of survivors and encounters a familiar face. Together, they must find a way out of the store they are trapped in.

Daisy stared at the radio in disbelief. Someone had heard her.

“Hey, are you alive in there?” the voice spoke again. It sounded like a man, definitely Scottish. Daisy snapped out of her stupor and scrambled across the van to where she had thrown the radio.

“Yes, hello?” she responded.

“Thank God, I was worried. For a moment there, it almost looked like…” the voice trailed off. Daisy clung to each word like a lifeline.

“Where are you?” Daisy asked.

“Outside,” the voice replied.

“Can you see me?” For a moment she thought about moving to the front seat so that she could look out the window and spot the person she was speaking to, but another bump on the side of the van told her to stay put.

“Yeah, I see you. There're walkers all around you. That’s the bad news.”

“There’s good news?” There was a pause.

“No.”

“Look,” Daisy began, “whoever you are, I’m freaking out a little in here, so…”

“Yeah, it’s a good thing you can’t see what I can up here, you’d have a major panic attack.”

“Thanks.” Daisy was growing less and less hopeful. “Is there any way you can help me out?”

“Maybe,” the voice sounded skeptical, “but you’d have to make a run for it.”

“Tell me.”

“There are only a few walkers behind the van, the rest have moved toward the front and joined the feeding frenzy where the horse went down, so you could probably get out that way.”

“Okay.” Daisy mulled it over in her mind. “What next?”

“The alley behind you is much less crowded. If you make a break for it now, while they’re distracted, you’ll have a shot. You have a gun?”

“Yeah, but I’m a terrible shot.”

“Hopefully you won’t need it.”

“I’ve got a few bags−”

“Leave them. You can’t risk it. If you have a backpack, take that. The rest will only slow you down. You need to move quickly. Once you get to the cross street behind you, there’ll be another alley to the left. That’s where I am.”

“Who are you?”

“Haven’t you been paying attention? You’re running out of time!” The radio went silent, and Daisy realized that this was it. She quickly went through her other bags and grabbed the things she thought she needed: more ammo and some other supplies from the police station. She slipped her backpack on, made sure her gun was loaded, and opened the back door of the van.

There were twenty yards or so between her and the back of the alley, and several walkers in that span. She aimed her gun at the nearest one and pulled the trigger. The bullet hit the brick wall to the right of its head. A second attempt proved more successful, and the walker hit the ground with a thud. The noise from her gun began attracting more walkers, so she made a run for it, alternately dodging and shooting the walkers. When she reached the end of the alley, she turned left and kept running. The cross street was worse than the alley. Just as it crossed her mind that her missed shots meant she’d soon be out of bullets, a figure moved toward her from the alley to left, and she found her gun pointing between the eyes of a fairly short, curly haired person in a blue t-shirt.

“Woah, woah! Not dead! Not dead!” he yelled, and she recognized it as the voice from the radio. Daisy quickly lowered her gun, and the fear in his eyes disappeared as quickly as it had appeared. She moved into the alley beside him and he tried to close a gate to stop any more walkers from coming into the alley, but there were too many of them. Recognizing that any attempt would be futile, he led Daisy farther down the alley. She followed him up a ladder to a fire escape several stories up, where they could catch their breath for the first time, both resting on the guard rail. For her first time since leaving her van, she took in her surroundings. At the base of the ladder were at least a dozen walkers, which they had narrowly escaped. Over the top of the building facing them, she could see her van and the last few walkers that remained where the feeding frenzy had been only moments before.

She studied the man next to her as he began to speak. He had a backpack, too, that seemed slightly less full than her own. He seemed relatively clean, although his face bore light stubble that matched his light brown curls.

 “I’m not even going to ask what the hell you were thinking,” he began. “I’m sure there’s some wild story as to why you came riding in on a horse and seem to have no clue as to what the hell you’re doing.” He appeared to be studying her as well. She straightened and held out her hand.

“I’m Daisy. Thanks for saving my ass,” she said. He shook it.

“Fitz. No problem.” Just then the fire escape shook a little, and they both glanced at the walkers below, who were still there. Fitz gestured toward the ladder that went to the roof, which was much taller than the ladder they had just climbed.

“That’s high,” Daisy said as she looked up, slightly intimidated.

“Look on the bright side,” Fitz reassured her, “At least it’ll be the fall that kills us.” He glanced back at the walkers and started climbing.

* * *

On the roof, they emerged from a door, and crossed an alley from above, on what Daisy guessed was a vent or a walkway of some sort. Daisy noticed a bus blocking the alley from the main street and only two or three walkers in the alley. She followed Fitz to a hatch in the roof and helped him open it. As he began climbing down the ladder, a question occurred to her.

“Why did you help me?” she asked. He paused and thought for a moment.

“I suppose I have some sort of naïve hope that if I’m ever that screwed over, someone’ll do the same for me,” he admitted, and resumed climbing down the ladder. Daisy followed, closing the hatch behind them. They cut through a room that might have once been an office, and another door opened onto a staircase in the alley Daisy had noticed from above. As they descended, Fitz pulled out his radio and turned it on.

“I’m back,” he spoke into it, “with a guest. And there are four walkers in the alley.” As soon as they reached the ground, one of the walkers took immediate notice of them. Before Daisy could say or do anything, a nearby door burst open and a man dressed in what looked like umpire gear appeared. He began to beat the walker with a baseball bat while Fitz urged Daisy to follow him inside the open door. Fitz grabbed the doorknob and shouted, “Trip, come on!” The man with the bat followed them back inside and Fitz shut the door behind them. 

Daisy had barely enough time to process the room when she was suddenly pushed against a wall with a gun pointing in her face. A woman shorter than her with chestnut skin and chin-length curly black hair stood in front of her, no sign of bluffing on her face.

“I should kill you,” the woman said. The man Fitz had called Trip took off his helmet and approached her.

“Raina, back off,” he said. She turned to look at him, her aim unchanged.

“Back off? You’re joking right?” She looked back at Daisy. “We’re dead because of her.”

“Raina, calm the hell down,” Trip urged, getting closer to her. Daisy saw Fitz edge away from the door toward another woman, short with dark hair, neither of them taking their eyes off what was happening.

“You gonna do it or not?” Trip asked Raina. She hesitated a moment and took the gun off Daisy. Everyone exhaled sharply

“I hope you’re happy,” Raina said, still keeping eye contact with Daisy. “We’re all dead. That’s on you.” Daisy looked around the storage room, scanning the others’ faces, none of them giving her a clue as to what Raina meant.

“I’m not sure I follow,” she said. Trip took off the rest of his umpire gear and began down a hallway, gesturing for Daisy and the other four to follow him.

“Listen,” he began as they walked, “we came here into the city to scavenge supplies. The optimal way to do so –and make it out in one piece− would be sneaking in and out, unnoticed. When you started firing that gun of yours…” As he spoke, the hallway opened up into a large storefront. There was an entryway with two sets of glass doors, and piled against the outside doors were dozens of walkers, trying to get in. Their moans filled the room.

The woman who hadn’t left Fitz’s side spoke up. “Every walker for a few miles heard you,” she said with an English accent. Daisy’s stomach dropped.

“You just rang the dinner bell,” Raina uttered. Suddenly, a large crack loudly appeared in one of the doors, and they all backed up.

“Why were you even out there, anyway?” the English woman asked.

“There was a helicopter,” Daisy confessed. “I tried to follow it…”

“That’s absurd,” Fitz said.

“You must’ve been seeing things. Happens to the best of us,” Trip reasoned.

“I saw what I saw,” Daisy maintained. Trip shook his head.

“Jemma, try your radio, see it you can get a hold of the others,” he said to the English woman. She began fiddling with the radio in her hand.

“Others?” Daisy asked. “You mean the refugee center?”

“Oh, yes, the refugee center,” Raina teased, “they’ll have dinner waiting on the table when we get back.”

“There’s no signal down here,” Jemma broke in. “Perhaps up on the roof?” She began walking toward the stairs when a gunshot made everyone jump.

“Shit, is that Ward?” Trip asked, furious. The others apart from Daisy began running to the stairs.

“Ward?” she pondered to herself, then ran to catch up with the others.

* * *

Trip pushed open the door on the roof and immediately spotted Ward. He was resting his rifle on the ledge, taking shots at random walkers on the street below.

“What the hell are you doing, man? You’re wasting ammo we don’t even have!” Trip yelled as he ran across the grate walkway and down the steps. “Those things are trying to get inside and you’re just bringing more of them down on our ass!” He approached Ward.

“Hey, Garret put me in charge, not you,” Ward said as he stood, in a tone that almost resembled bragging. Raina followed Trip at a distance, stopping at the base of the stairs. Fitz and Jemma stood in the doorway, unmoving as Daisy arrived behind them.

“Who’s Garret?” she whispered, and the pair shushed her. Between their heads, she caught a glimpse of the man who she thought she had cared for and was suddenly overcome with resentment.

“Garret put both of us in charge so I could make sure you didn’t pull stupid shit like this,” Trip reminded him.

“Bang-up job you’re doing,” Raina muttered.

“I don’t recall him saying that, are you sure?” Ward asked with a fake apologetic tone. He picked up the rifle and approached Trip. Daisy had seen him act this way before, rarely, and knew what was coming. She started fiddling around in her backpack for something she had grabbed at the police station.

“Really, Ward?” Trip said with mock surprise, “Because I thought you clung to every word that comes out of his mouth. Too bad you’ll never be more than his favorite pet.” At that, Ward swung the rifle and hit Trip square in the face. Daisy could only see bits and pieces as the others ran to them and surrounded them, begging them to stop. Trip wiped the blood from his nose. He swung back and missed. Ward threw the rifle aside. Raina tried to get them to stop, but Ward pushed her aside. He shoved Trip down, and he hit the nearby pipe as he fell. Trip looked up at Ward, and Ward knelt above him and began repeatedly hitting him, holding him by his collar. As Daisy found what she was looking for, she pulled it out and looked up, only to be horrified by the sight of Ward holding a pistol in Trip’s face. Nobody said anything now, except for a few desperate “please”s. A few achingly long moments passed. Thunder rolled in the distance and Ward looked up at the sky. The others breathed a collective sigh of relief as Ward straightened, taking the gun off Trip.

“Okay, let’s try this again,” he began. “I’m in charge, sound good to everyone?”

“Not quite,” Daisy said, coming up from behind him and hitting him in the back of the head with the butt of the rifle. He fell facedown onto the ground. She grabbed his right arm and closed one end of the handcuffs she had brought around his wrist, and the other around the metal frame of a nearby pipe.

“What the hell?” He rubbed the back of his head with his uncuffed hand and looked up. Daisy knelt in front of him. “Daisy?” he sounded genuinely shocked. “I thought you were dead!”

“Sorry to disappoint,” she replied. Ward sat up and leaned against the pipe.

“Wait, you two know each other?” Fitz asked, kneeling with Jemma next to Trip. He studied the expressions on Ward and Daisy’s faces as they stared at each other, the former’s was a mix of confusion and relief, while the latter’s was of pure anger.

“He _was_ my boyfriend, until he left me for dead in a hospital,” she told him.

“Excuse me?” Raina sounded even more shocked than Fitz.

“I didn’t even know you were alive!” Ward replied, shaking his head. “When you disappeared on the freeway, I went to find you, but everyone I asked said they hadn’t seen you!”

“I got shot!” Daisy fired back. “If you had bothered to ask any of the law enforcement present, you would have known that.”

“Shot?” He echoed. “How did you survive? And why do you have police-grade handcuffs?” Daisy decided not to give him the satisfaction of an answer. She looked at the others and noticed they were all watching with rapt attention. She gestured toward Trip, still breathing heavily, and looked back at Ward.

“What the hell was that, anyway? Since when do you stick guns in people’s faces after beating them half to death?” She asked.

“Since the world ended,” Ward replied defiantly. Daisy shook her head and stood up. She walked to the edge of the roof and rested her elbows on the ledge, staring down onto the street. Jemma followed her and stood beside her.

“You’re not from here, are you?” Jemma asked.

“What do you mean?” Daisy looked over at her.

“You just don’t seem to know what happened here. Recent events, I mean,” Jemma elaborated.

“Ward and I lived in an apartment in that building,” Daisy said, looking back onto the street and pointing, “but when I was shot, I went into a coma. I woke up and the world had changed.”

“Do you know how long it was?”

“I have no idea,” Daisy replied with a shrug.

“Well, then. Welcome home,” Jemma said. The two women stared silently at the numerous walkers milling about on the street below.

* * *

Raina leaned over the edge to get a better look at the crowded street.

“God, it’s like Times Square down there,” she said to no one in particular.

“Daisy, come on. You know you can’t just keep me locked up,” Ward pleaded, trying to sound formidable. “If I had known you were alive-”

“You would have still ended up sticking a gun in someone’s face,” Daisy finished, not even turning around to look at him. “Save it.”

Trip sat on the ground next to her, leaning on the half wall. “Got a signal yet?” he asked Jemma as she stood next to him, fiddling with her radio. His eyes didn’t leave Ward, who was still cuffed to the pipe across from him.

“Not yet, I’m afraid,” Jemma replied.

“Keep trying,” Trip insisted.

“Here, let me,” Fitz suggested, and Jemma handed it to him.

“Why? It’s not as if _they_ can do anything to get us out of this,” Raina retorted, and walked away from the edge.

“We have people outside the city,” Jemma explained, leaning forward so Daisy could see her around Fitz. “There isn’t a refugee center. I don’t think that ever existed.”

Daisy sighed. “Then Raina’s right,” she concluded. “We have to find our own way out.”

Trip shook his head. “The streets aren’t safe,” he protested.

“The streets… What about under the streets? In the sewers?” Daisy suggested, sounding hopeful. Trip nodded.

“Jemma, check the alley for manhole covers,” he said, catching on. She nodded and ran to the far ledge.

“Nothing,” she reported. “They must all be out on the street where the walkers are.”

“Wait, Jemma,” Fitz began, “what about that thing you saw last time we were here? On the bottom floor. It looked like−”

“A drainage tunnel, yes!” she finished at the same time as him. “That probably leads to the sewers!”

“What are we waiting for?” Trip said, standing up. The others followed Fitz and Jemma down the stairs, leaving Ward still handcuffed to the roof.

When they reached the bottom floor, they all stood with flashlights at the railing that surrounded the large hole in the ground.

“This appears to be what we’re looking for,” Fitz observed.

“It’s the only place in the building that goes down, but we’ve never gone down it,” Jemma said. “I mean, who would want to?” When there was no response, she and Fitz looked up to see the rest of the group staring at them. “Ah. Right.”

“We’ll be right behind you,” Raina offered.

“No,” Fitz broke in, “It’s too tight down there. It’d be better if Jemma and I went alone. No offense, but this is our first time bringing a group and everything’s gone to shite.”

“What do you want us to do then?” Daisy asked. Fitz scanned the others faces and thought for a moment.

“Trip, take Daisy’s gun, you’re our best shot. You should probably cover the shop doors. Raina, you have the only other gun, so you can go with him.”

“Thanks,” muttered Raina.

“Daisy,” Fitz continued, “ you should wait up here. If anything happens, yell down to us so we can get up quickly.”  
            “Got it,” Daisy nodded. She watched Fitz and Jemma share a look as they took a deep breath.

“Ready?” he asked.

“Yep,” Jemma replied. Fitz turned, put his flashlight in his mouth, and began climbing down the ladder, soon followed by Jemma. As he reached the bottom, he stepped off the ladder and heard the splash of a thin layer of water at his feet. When Jemma arrived next to him, the pair looked up. Trip and Raina nodded and disappeared from their view.  Fitz looked at Jemma, then shone his flashlight down the tunnel in front of them. A tiny trickle of water flowed down the center of the circular tunnel, which had several smaller pipes running down one side of it. Fitz led the way into it, unintentionally scaring a few rats that were residing in it. He cringed and reluctantly continued on.

* * *

The front of the store was quiet, apart from the sound of walkers trying to break through the door. Raina and Trip wandered between the colorful racks of clothing, guns in their hands and eyes on the door.

“How you holding up?” Raina asked after a few moments.

“Been better,” Trip replied. “Nothing I’m not used to.”

“You’re used to having a gun in your face?”

“No, but he’s never been the calm one.” He smirked at her. “Besides, he’s not the only one pointing guns in people’s faces today.”

“Hey, she’s still the reason we’re in this mess. I’ll apologize when we’re back at camp.”

“If you say so,” Trip conceded, and Raina rolled her eyes at him. She thought for a moment.

“Do you know her?” Raina asked. “She certainly seems to know her way around Ward. You two never crossed paths?”

“Can’t say we have. I hadn’t seen Ward for years before all this went down. Who knows what he’s been up to. I do know that he never mentioned her, to anyone at camp. I guess that’s why I was surprised. It seemed like there was a lot between them.”

“Emphasis on _was_. How pissed is she going to be when she finds out who’s waiting for him back at camp?”

Trip chuckled at the thought. “We’ll worry about that when we get back.”

“If, more like.” Raina stared at the walkers. “Unless the science twins find something in that tunnel…”

* * *

Fitz pushed a door open and used his flashlight to look around. He stepped cautiously around the rats, and Jemma gingerly followed. They had come across a sewer tunnel, this one slightly bigger than the one they had entered through, and with an iron grate over its entrance.

“Can we cut through it?” Jemma suggested.

“We could, but not with any of the tools we brought,” Fitz replied, inspecting the bars carefully with his flashlight. There was a noise, and the beam of Fitz’s flashlight fell beyond the grate, on a walker devouring a rat, its face dripping with blood. It growled at them, and they jumped back as it reached its hand through the bars, just short of grabbing them.

* * *

Trip glanced away from the walkers to see Raina examining a simple necklace at the jewelry counter.

“Doing some shopping?” he asked with a smile.

“Not for me,” she replied, looking up. “Kara would love this.”

“Ah, I see. A souvenir from our time trapped in the store,” Trip joked.

“Her birthday’s soon. She’s the only person I knew from before that’s still alive.” Raina hesitated, then took the necklace and slipped it into her pocket.

“Gotcha. In that case, it’s a great present. She’ll love it when we get back. A pretty necklace and her boyfriend’s ex.” He grinned.

“Stop it.” She moved past him and resumed watching the doors.

“How do you even know what day it is?” he asked, genuinely curious.

“I’ve been keeping track,” she replied, and turned back to look at him. Just then, there was a loud shattering as the walkers broke through the first set of doors. Raina moved closer to Trip, who raised his gun. Fitz, Jemma, and Daisy came running back in to see the walkers begin pounding on the second set of doors. It was only a matter of time now.

“Find anything down there?” Trip asked the others.

“Not a way out,” Jemma replied.

“Well, we need one. Soon,” Raina added.

* * *

Back on the roof, the sound of distant thunder mingled with the clanging of metal against metal. Ward pulled his cuffed hand back and forth, not in an attempt to remove it, but in an effort to draw attention to himself. “Look, I told you: I promise to be good as soon as Trip apologizes. Now will you _please_ let me out of these things?” No one paid him any mind, however. They had silently agreed to deal with one problem at a time, and that the problem of getting home far outweighed the problem of Grant Ward. He continued his begging to no avail.

The rest of the group gathered around the edge of the roof, watching as Fitz looked through a pair of binoculars.

“Typically, construction sites keep the keys to those trucks on hand,” he said, pointing at the nearby lot as he passed the binoculars to Trip, who peered through and shook his head. 

“There’s no way to make it past all those walkers.” He handed the binoculars back to Fitz and stared down at the street.

Daisy turned to Fitz. “You got me out of my van.”

Fitz shook his head. “It was different. They were distracted by the fresh horse they were eating.”

“Can we distract them again? Other ways, besides food?” Daisy looked to the rest of them for a reply.

Jemma thought for a moment. “Well, they’re drawn by sound.”

“What else?”

Trip looked back at her. “Apart from hearing you? They see you, smell you, and if they catch you, they eat you.”

“Fantastic,” Daisy quipped. “Wait, they can tell us by smell?”

“Can’t you?” Raina shot back.

Fitz looked positively repulsed. “They smell dead; we don’t. It’s fairly noticeable.”

Daisy gazed out at the street. “I think I know how we can get to the truck.”

* * *

Daisy searched the racks of the department store until she found what she was looking for. “Here,” she said, as she tossed a pair of rubber gloves at Jemma, and another at Fitz.

“This is a terrible idea,” Jemma declared. Daisy continued distributing the gloves until they each had a pair.

Trip looked at his own. “She’s right. Why don’t we stop and think this through a minute.”

Daisy stood, looking up at him. “We don’t have a minute. They’ve already broken through one set of doors, and we all know that glass won’t hold forever.” She found a long tan work coat and threw it at Fitz.

* * *

 

“Are we really doing this?” Raina asked as she buttoned up the work coat and slipped on the rubber gloves.

“Unfortunately, it looks like we’re out of options,” Trip conceded, and put his hand on the doorknob. “Ready?”

Raina nodded. They opened the door and rushed into the alley. The walker from earlier was right where Trip had left it. Raina grabbed the ankles and Trip grabbed it under its arms, and they hauled it back inside.

* * *

 

Daisy pulled the visor on the face guard down and took a deep breath. She adjusted her grip on the crowbar in her hand and swung at the glass casing, which shattered. She reached inside and grabbed the axe. This was their last hope, and it was her idea. If it fell through, their blood would be on her hands. She couldn’t let that happen.

The others all stood around the corpse, grim-faced and in their matching work coats and gloves. Daisy approached with the axe and swung back. There was cringing and gasping, and Fitz shut his eyes, but the axe didn’t come down. Fitz opened his eyes to see Daisy had stopped herself.  She dropped the axe, took off her gloves and face guard, and knelt over the body.  Fitz watched her search the body until she found the dead man’s wallet.

“Wayne Dunlap,” she read, “Georgia license. Born in 1979.” She handed the small plastic card to Fitz. “He had twenty-eight dollars in his wallet when he died, and a picture of a girl.” She pulled out the picture and turned it over. “‘With love, from Rachel.’” No one said anything for a moment, and Fitz handed the license to Jemma. “He used to be one of us, with the same worries and the same problems. We should never forget Wayne.” Daisy sat for a beat, then stood up. She put her gloves and face guard back on, and picked up the axe.

“One more thing,” Jemma remarked, looking up from the license, “he was an organ donor.”

Daisy pulled the visor down and struck the corpse with the axe. Everyone shuddered. Fitz closed his eyes again, and Raina covered her nose with her elbow. Daisy felt repulsed, but continued striking the body a few more times. Fitz grabbed Jemma’s shoulder, noticeably uneasy. Daisy stopped for a moment to catch her breath and handed the axe and face guard to Trip. He reluctantly took them and continued chopping.

“I’m going to be sick,” Fitz moaned, and Jemma squeezed his hand on her shoulder. Trip paused and exchanged a look with Daisy, who nodded.

“Everyone’s wearing gloves?” Jemma asked. They all managed a nod, even Fitz. Trip took the guard off and set down the axe.

“Don’t get let any of it get in your eyes or on your skin,” Jemma cautioned. The group hesitantly crouched over the body and each grabbed a handful of insides. Daisy closed her eyes and began spreading it on herself, and the others followed, wiping it on her coat. Fitz was spreading it on himself as well, though he was visibly more revolted, and loudly groaning. Raina grabbed an intestine and draped it around Fitz’s neck. He bit his lip and looked away.

“Think about something else,” Jemma told him. “Think about… monkeys.”

“Dead monkeys,” Raina muttered, unable to look away from the cadaver. Fitz leaned over and retched.

“Why would you do that? That’s just awful,” Daisy chided.

Raina looked away from the carcass and looked back at Fitz, as if coming out of a trance. “Sorry.”

“Screw you,” he replied, still doubled over and groaning.

“Do we smell like them?” Daisy asked.

“Oh, yeah,” Trip replied with a tone of disgust. His expression suddenly lightened slightly and he took his gloves off. He pulled Daisy’s gun out and handed it to her. “I suppose you’ll be needing this,” he said.

Daisy pulled a glove off and put the gun away. “Let’s hope not.” Raina also gave Fitz her gun, just in case.

“Once we get back, you need to be ready to leave,” Daisy told the others.

“What about Grant Ward?” Trip asked.

“There’s a key to the handcuffs in my backpack. Don’t forget to bring that with you either.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Daisy put the glove back on. “Hand me the axe,” she decided, and Jemma obliged. “We need more guts.” She swung the axe down hard, and everyone winced.

* * *

 

Daisy stepped out the open door and into the alley, Fitz close behind. They each had a hand and a foot tied to a string around their neck, and they were armed and as ready as they would ever be. They gazed down the blocked alley, then looked back at each other. They exchanged a look of silent agreement and began limping slowly down the alley. As they got farther away, Trip closed the door behind them.

The first of the two walkers in the alley approached them, and Daisy’s hand tightened around the axe. Fitz was still tense, and he gripped his crowbar with fervor, despite the fact that the walker practically ignored them. As they neared the bus, the other walker got very close to Daisy. It was inches from her face, but she stopped herself from turning to look at it. A few achingly long seconds passed, and the walker moved on. Daisy breathed again.

The bus was parked so close to the surrounding buildings that the only possible way to get to the main street was to go under it. Daisy and Fitz got down on the ground, flattened themselves beneath it, and began to crawl. As they got closer to the other end, they could see dozens of walker feet slowly passing by. Once they had emerged from the other side, they carefully stood and resumed their sluggish, limping paces. Daisy followed Fitz to the left, and they began toward the construction site.

* * *

 

Once Trip had closed the door, he, Jemma, and Raina sprinted up to the roof. Somehow it was Jemma who reached the door first, slamming it open as she ran to Fitz’s bag in search of the binoculars. Ward turned back and looked to see what was happening. Trip and Raina followed close behind Jemma.

“Jemma, try the CB again,” Trip said, as Jemma, who had been eager to look for Fitz, reluctantly handed the binoculars to Raina

“What’s happening?” Ward demanded. “Where are Daisy and Fitz?”

The others ignored him, and Raina began searching the crowded street.   

“Hello?” Jemma spoke into the CB, but there was no response.

Raina pointed. “There!” she yelled. No one paid any mind to the thunder rumbling.

“Wait, Daisy’s down on the _street?_ ” Ward struggled even more to get the handcuffs off.

“With Fitz,” Jemma informed him, still trying the radio.

“Well, did she bring the cuff keys with her?” Ward asked, in an attempt to hide his concern.

“Nope. She told me right where they are,” Trip gloated.

Ward grimaced.

* * *

 

Coulson reached inside the front of his RV, doing his best to fix a hose in the engine. “This hasn’t got long left,” he told Charles, shaking his head. “If Fitz were here, he would know what to do.” He took his hands out of the RV and noticed Kara pacing nearby.

“It’s getting late. Why aren’t they back yet?” she asked.

“They’ll be back soon,” Coulson resigned. “No use getting upset.”

Rosalind was hanging laundry when they heard Jemma’s voice come over the CB radio in the center of camp.

“Basecamp, can anyone hear me?” Jemma’s voice said, barely audible through the static.

Coulson rushed over to the radio and picked up the handset.  “Hello, yes! Jemma, is that you? Reception’s bad on this end,” he called into it. There was a pause for half a heartbeat. Garret, Ros, and a few others neared.

“Garret, is that you?” Jemma asked, still muffled. “We’re in trouble. We got trapped in the department store.”

“Did she say trapped?” Garret asked Ros, who was still listening intently to the barely intelligible voice.

“There are walkers everywhere. Hundreds of them at least. They’ve got us surrounded.”

“Jemma, repeat that last. Repeat,” Coulson called desperately. There was only static, and Coulson gazed up at Ros. Kara glanced worriedly at the receiver, then over her shoulder to the skyline. The static cut out.

“She said the drugstore,” Ros echoed.

“I heard it, too.” Coulson nodded.

“Garret,” Kara pleaded.

“No,” Garret shook his head. “No way. We are not going after them. We can’t risk the rest of the group. We’ve been over this.”

“So we’re just abandoning them?” Kara demanded, furious.

“Kara, I understand this might be difficult…”

“They volunteered to go,” Kara insisted, “for the benefit of the entire group!”

“So they knew the risks! If they’re trapped, that’s it. There’s nothing else we can do.”

Kara looked him in the eyes and stared him down, searching for an ounce  of something that might resemble compassion, but to no avail.

“Fine,” she surrendered. Garret walked back to the shotgun he had been cleaning. “Asshole,” she muttered.

* * *

Thunder roared ever closer as Daisy and Fitz slowly staggered toward the site. The heat rose thick off the pavement, but the pair navigated their way through the plethora of walkers. The end was in sight now.

“It’s actually working,” Fitz whispered, “I don’t believe it.” A walker moved toward him for half a second, then resumed on its unspecified path.

“Don’t draw attention,” Daisy whispered back. Another walker moved closer to him, this time lingering. It was almost as if it was examining him. Fitz glanced at Daisy with fear in his eyes, and she shrugged apprehensively. In a desperate attempt, Fitz rolled his eyes back and made a pathetic sort of groaning sound, and the walker moved on. If it wouldn’t have meant their immediate deaths, Daisy would have burst out laughing.

* * *

 

Trip gazed decisively through the binoculars, not losing sight of Fitz or Daisy. He felt something wet land on top of his head and looked away for the first time, setting down the binoculars and looking up. He held out his hand and felt the first droplets of rain.

“Aw, hell,” he said, and looked back out into the crowd.

The rain quickly picked up, and in no time it was pouring. Trip looked away from the binoculars again, unable to see out of them due to the water streaming down the lenses. Already, he and the others were soaked to the skin.

“It’s just a cloudburst, We get them all the time. It’ll be over soon enough,” Jemma said reassuringly, although Trip couldn’t tell if it was more toward the others or herself.

* * *

 

Fitz began to panic. He watched the water droplets slide down his coat, and drip onto the ground. He looked to Daisy, eyes wide.

Thunder roared louder than ever. She opened her mouth to calm him, but out of the corner of her eye she saw a walker take notice of her for a few seconds. Her grip on her axe tightened before the walker continued away from them.

“They can smell us can’t they? It’s the rain, it’s washing out the smell,” Fitz whispered a bit too loudly.

“No, it’s not,” Daisy replied in the same slightly panicked loud whisper, lying to herself and to Fitz. Another passing walker briefly took notice of them. “Maybe a little bit.” Suddenly, a particularly loud walker came right for her, and she instinctively drove the axe into the top of its head. It took a few pulls to get it out again, but when she had it she yelled, “Run!”

“Good plan,” Fitz replied without hesitating. They hurried across the wet pavement with over a dozen walkers on their tail, the gate to the construction site just yards away. There were still a few walkers that they had to take care of before they had a clear shot, but once they made it, they sprinted. Once they reached the gate, they threw their weapons over the fence and began to climb. Fitz landed on the other side first and ripped the bloodstained coat off immediately, Daisy doing the same just after him.

They may have finally reached other side, but they were hardly safe. The dozens of walkers still pushed on the fence. Daisy pulled out her gun and began shooting. Her aim left much to be desired, and despite her best attempts, she mainly landed body shots, taking out one or two of the walkers at most.

As the noise distracted the walkers, Fitz ran over to a lockbox and looked for the keys to a truck. He grabbed the right ones and called to Daisy, tossing them to her. She caught them and they ran toward the truck. When they were only a few feet from it, a large crashing sound told them that the walkers had brought the fence down, and they had only moments to reach their destination. Daisy hurried into the driver's side and locked the doors behind Fitz just in time. Fists pounded on the windows as the engine roared to life, drowning out the moans. Daisy slammed on the gas and they made their escape away from where they came.

* * *

 

In watching the events below them unfold, Raina was much too distraught to notice that it had stopped raining.

“They’re leaving us,” she said, dismayed at the sight of the truck disappearing out of sight.

“What?” Ward asked, pulling again on his chained wrist. No one said anything. “Trip, let me out so I can see. Please.”

It was the last word that struck Trip. Not as badly as he had been struck earlier, but it’s pleading, desperate tone finally compelled Trip to give in to Ward’s incessant begging. He hesitated, then handed the binoculars to Raina and crouched in front of Daisy’s bag to begin his search for the key.

Jemma still stared at the spot where the truck had been a moment ago. “Where are they going?”

* * *

The front of the truck rammed into a gate and they finally were on a street again.

“Oh, god! They were everywhere,” Fitz exclaimed. He turned toward Daisy. “What do we do?”

“They need to be led away,” she reasoned, more thinking out loud than proposing a plan. She thought about where they would have to go to get the rest of the group. “Those roll-up doors at the front of the store. That would be a good place. We need to make sure it’s clear. Get your friends on the radio. Tell them to be there and be ready.”

“Okay, fine,” Fitz said as he began rooting through his bag for the radio, “but I missed the part where you explain how I’m leading the walkers away.”

“Noise.”

“What?”

Daisy slammed on the breaks and held out her hand.

“Crowbar,” she said. Fitz hesitantly handed it to her, half in awe and half in fear. He followed her to a nearby Ford Mustang that had somehow escaped his notice. Before he had the chance to appreciate it, Daisy smashed the front drivers-side window with the crowbar. The alarm blared. Fitz covered his ears and looked around, terrified of what might be coming now.

Daisy opened the door and began fiddling with some wires under the steering column. In no time, the engine revved and Daisy re-emerged. “Head that way,” she said, pointing. He got in the car and nodded.

Back in the truck, Daisy began driving toward the department store. Fitz soon passed her, unable to be missed in the deafening sports car.

* * *

Jemma was startled by the radio in her hand.

“Jemma?” Fitz’s voice called, slightly muffled.

“Fitz, where are you?” she replied, everyone’s attention turning to their conversation.

“Long story. You guys need to get your stuff and wait at the cargo doors ASAP,” Fitz concluded, and before Jemma could say anything else, the line went silent again.

Raina wasted no time in grabbing her bag and Ward’s rifle. Jemma followed suit and grabbed her own. The pair of them rushed to the door and waited for Trip, still digging through Daisy’s bag.

“I’ve looked through every pocket several times. I can’t find it, man, I’m sorry,” he said, standing up.

“Oh, sure,” Ward said, not believing a word of it.

“She said it was here,” Trip surmised, sounding defeated. He zipped up the backpack and put on his own. He stepped up onto the grate walkway and knocked over a bag of tools by accident.

“Come on, Trip,” Ward called, suddenly sounding almost desperate, “You can’t do this. You can’t leave me here!” He pulled on his wrist, the handcuffs now beginning to cause his skin to bleed.

Jemma and Raina looked silently between the two men, horrified at their lack of ability to do anything to change the situation.

Trip turned back to Ward and took a deep breath. “I’m sorry, Grant.”

Ward watched the three figures disappear behind the door.

“You’re better than this, Trip!” Ward yelled. “You can’t leave me here to die, I know you can’t!”

Trip had almost reached the bottom of the stairs when he realized Ward was right. He ran back to the door, set down Daisy’s bag, and grabbed a chain a metal loop next to the door handle. He wrapped the chain between the door and loop a few times and used the attached padlock to ensure nothing could get through. Jemma called after him from the stairs. He told himself that there was nothing more he could do, then picked up Daisy’s bag and began running down.

As the three of them reached the storefront, the second set of doors finally gave way, and the walkers burst into the department store. Jemma led the group into the cargo bay and shut the door behind them. Raina waited by the chain pulley for some sign to open the cargo door. The sound of an earsplitting car alarm could be heard in the distance, quickly approaching. They sat in the dark and exchanged tense looks, the walkers growing louder and closer. The alarm faded until a sudden bang on the rolling door made Trip jump. Raina pulled the chain, raising the door as fast as possible.

The light from outside blinded them for half a second, but after they blinked, Daisy stood above them in the back of a truck. They tossed the bags in and Trip and Raina climbed up into it. The door at the other end of the loading bay burst open, and walkers poured in. Daisy ran back into the driver’s seat as Trip helped Jemma into the truck. It sped away from the store as Daisy pressed hard on the gas and Trip lowered the door. Raina settled into the passenger seat, while Jemma and Trip sat against the wall. Everyone was breathing heavily, relieved to have made it out after such a close call.

Once safely on the highway, Daisy glanced around the back, taking a mental count of who was there.

“Where’s Ward?” she asked, a hint of concern in her voice, almost more of a demand than a question. Jemma and Raina looked nervously at each other. There was a pause.

“The key wasn’t there,” Trip replied, sounding more upset at himself than anything else.

“What do you mean? No…” Daisy shook her head. “I’m sure--”

“It wasn’t. I scoured the entire bag. There was nothing else I could do, no more time,” Trip admitted, defeated.

Daisy looked ahead at the road in silence for a few moments. “It’s my fault,” she decided. “If it wasn’t in the bag, that’s one hundred percent on me. When we get back to your camp, say I dropped the key or something. I’m sorry I put you in that position.”

Another silence filled the truck, and Jemma looked around, doing her own mental count for the first time. “Where’s Fitz?” she asked.

The car alarm that they had heard before was nearing again, and a red mustang pulled in front of them and sped past. Over the alarm, the sound of Fitz yelling joyfully was just barely audible.


	3. Return

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Back at the camp, Daisy must face the consequences of her actions back in Atlanta.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok, first of all, I am SO sorry that I haven't updated in so long. I've been really busy, but now I'm serious about writing so more chapters soon (and hopefully a decent schedule)! If you're reading this, thanks so much for sticking around after my months of absence. It's so much fun to be back! Also, as always, thanks so much to my angel of a beta.

“How was I supposed to know she wasn’t dead?” Ward asked no one in particular. He didn’t know how long he had been alone on the roof. It could have been minutes or hours. The only way he could distinguish the passing of time was the sun overhead, but the lower in the sky it got, the less hope of rescue he possessed. “She disappeared! I had no way of finding her. They were carting bodies off when I went looking, and her phone was shattered next to a pool of blood! What was I supposed to think?” He was silent again for a moment.

The delirium from the dehydration had begun to kick in. He pulled again at the handcuff, his wrist raw and bloody, and screamed. “And of course, goody-two-shoes Trip just couldn’t find that fucking key!” There was a banging sound and he saw over his shoulder the door being pushed against by at least two walkers. A chain kept the door from opening wide enough for them to come through, but all the same, their moans were the last sound he wanted to hear. _He had to get out of there._

Maneuvering himself under the pipe, he tried again to use his belt to reach the hacksaw that had fallen out of Fitz’s tool bag. One of them had knocked it over as they abandoned him, and the hacksaw- the one Fitz claimed could cut through any metal in less than a minute- lay just out of reach. But he had no other options. He looked up at the door, the walkers relentless in their attempts. He had to keep trying.

* * *

 

“Get off here,” Trip instructed Daisy. Apart from his directions to the camp, the truck from Atlanta was solemn. He noticed the distressed expression on her face.

“There wasn’t anything we could have done,” he said. “You genuinely thought the key was in the bag, and there wasn’t enough time to try anything else.” Daisy knew he was trying to make her feel better, but the fact that she had left her ex chained to a roof to die didn’t exactly bode well.

The sound of the alarm on Fitz’s Mustang grew loud as he once again passed them. He was still cheering, unaware of who had been left behind.

“At least someone’s having a good day,” Raina muttered.

* * *

 

Fitz rounded the last corner on the twisty mountain road, dust flying up behind him. The blaring alarm was deafening inside the mustang, but he didn’t care. He had been nervous at first, but the thrill he had felt speeding down the empty highway had been something he never thought he would enjoy as much as he did. He thought about the girl who he had saved and knew next to nothing about. He almost wished she was in the seat next to him, sharing in this feeling that felt almost like victory.   _No, Jemma,_ he thought. There was no person he’d rather have next to him than his best friend.

 He pulled into the clearing at the edge of camp with a huge smile on his face. Some of the others were approaching, drawn by the sound. He opened the door and stepped out, suddenly feeling a bit more sheepish.

“Fitz?” Coulson shouted over the cacophony. “Where the hell’d you get that?”

“Well,” Fitz began, but he was cut off.

“More importantly, can you turn it off?” Garret yelled, quickly approaching from where he’d been keeping watch atop the RV.

“Yep, sorry. One second,” Fitz said, shutting the door behind him and hastily lifting the hood. He briefly examined the car’s inner workings and yanked one of the wires. The car was silent.

“Are you trying to attract every walker for miles?” Garret demanded.

“What? No, the sound probably bounced around the hills a bit. It’d be pretty difficult to get an exact source pinpointed,” Fitz explained, squinting as he examined the valley below them in the low sun. Garret shifted uncomfortably, but said no more.

“Where’s everyone else?” Kara asked eagerly.

“They’re fine. They shouldn’t be too far behind me,” Fitz reassured her. Just as he said it, the truck pulled up behind the rest of the camp’s cars. 

* * *

 

Daisy shut the engine off and looked ahead at all the strangers talking to Fitz. There were at least five of them, and Daisy assumed there were more elsewhere in the camp. Two brown haired men stood across from Fitz, one wearing Aviators and a smile, the other with a turtleneck and a serious expression. Both held themselves in the manner of someone who was in charge. A woman with a brown, close-cropped bob stood between them, and on their left was someone that Daisy recognized as Charles, a man who lived across the hall from Ward. He had a small daughter she used to babysit. The youngest of the five was a woman with long, dark hair pulled back in a ponytail.

“Come meet everyone,” Trip said with a smile. He opened his door and stepped onto the ground, and Daisy heard the two behind her do the same out the back. She watched them join the group in front of her. Jemma resumed her place at Fitz’s side, and the dark-haired woman was pulling Raina into a hug. She seemed relieved that Raina was back, but was still scanning the truck, as if waiting to see someone else appear from it. Her eyes met Daisy’s and immediately darted away. Daisy decided to get out of the truck. She opened the door and stepped out, waiting by the truck until told otherwise. In the meantime, she still watched what was happening where Fitz was.

“It’s great to see you. For a while there you really had us worried,” said the first of the brown-haired men.

“On the radio, you said you were trapped. How did you get out?” asked the older woman.

“We had some help,” Jemma explained, turning behind her and gesturing for Daisy to approach. Daisy did as she was bid. “Everyone, this is Daisy. We wouldn’t have made it out without her.

Daisy waved sheepishly at the small crowd.

“Well, Daisy. Thanks for helping everyone get back safe,” the second brown-haired man said.

“Not everyone,” said the woman who had been hugging Raina. “Where’s Ward?”

“You want to tell her?” Raina asked, turning to Daisy with a smirk.

* * *

 

The sun had been down a while when Raina joined the rest of them around the campfire.

“I finally got her to calm down,” she said, settling in between Trip and Charles.

“I apologized profusely, but she wouldn’t even let me say what happened.” Daisy threw up her hands. “Before she makes up her mind to hate me forever, she should know what he was doing when I did it.”

“I asked him what happened to you, back at the beginning,” Charles said. “He told me you had died. I lost Polly around the same time, so I knew not to press him.”

“I’m sorry,” Daisy said, heartbroken over the question she had been afraid to ask about his wife. His daughter Robin was laying down with her head in his lap.

“He never mentioned you to us,” said the first brown-haired man, who had introduced himself as Coulson. “What happened to you?”

“I got shot. I don’t really remember how. All I know is that I woke up in a hospital yesterday morning. The hospital was empty and terrifying, and I had no idea where I was. I kept expecting to wake up from a nightmare, then I met a man and his son who helped me out. I decided to try to make it home, but that’s where Fitz found me.”

“I can’t even begin to imagine how disorienting that must have been,” Jemma said from across the fire.

A branch cracked behind her and Fitz, the latter of whom jumped and turned around. Kara stood behind them, wrapped in a large flannel that could only have been Ward’s.

“Why?” she asked, staring directly at Daisy.

“He’d just beaten Trip half to death and was holding a gun in his face. I’d seen him to some terrible shit, but nothing that bad,” Daisy admitted. Kara glanced at Trip, noticing for the first time the bloodstains on the front of his olive Henley from when his nose had been bleeding earlier.

“I was supposed to uncuff him,” Trip added. “I couldn’t find the key.”

“Trip,” Daisy began to argue, but he refused to let her take all the blame.

“It’s my fault he was left behind,” he continued. “However, I did manage to chain the door to the roof shut before we made it out.”

“What?” Kara and Daisy spoke at once.

“We have to go back for him,” Kara said.

“I agree. Leaving him up there was inhumane, even for someone like him,” Daisy admitted.

“Then what are we waiting for? We have to go now!” Kara insisted.

“It’s late. It’s dark. Going back now would be stupid,” Raina replied. “You also have no experience being out there whatsoever. You’ve never had to fight one of them off. It’d be too dangerous for you to go in the day.”

 “I’ll go instead,” Daisy volunteered.

“Me, too,” Trip said. Daisy glared at him, peeved that he was still talking the blame for something that was completely her fault.

“We need someone who knows their way around the city,” Daisy added, looking across from her to Fitz. He opened his mouth to reluctantly agree, but was interrupted

“No way,” Garret objected. “It’s a noble cause, but you are not risking that many lives. We can’t afford to lose anyone else. We don’t have enough guns. Today the camp was left practically undefended.”

“I have guns,” Daisy remembered. “For the dead ones. A whole bag of them.”

 “What?” Fitz asked.

“In my van,” Daisy replied. “They should still be right where I left them. The key to Ward’s cuffs are probably in there, too.” Coulson exchanged a look with Garret before looking back at Daisy.

“In that case, you could probably use an extra pair of hands,” Coulson said. “Count me in.”

“And me,” Fitz finally managed.

“It’s settled then,” Trip concluded. “We leave at noon tomorrow.”

* * *

 

Jemma led Daisy through the maze of tents, both equipped with a flashlight.

“Thanks for letting me use your group’s empty tent,” Daisy said. “I really appreciate it. But if you don’t mind my asking, why is it empty? I mean, did the person who owned it… you know…”

“No, nothing like that,” Jemma replied. “It belonged to Ros before she moved into the camper with Coulson.” She stopped and held her light up to the blue and grey tent on their right. “Here you are. If you need anything, mine’s just one tent down that way.” She pointed. “On the other side of Fitz’s.”

“You and Fitz don’t, you know, share a tent?” Daisy was surprised.

“What? Oh, no. We’re friends is all. We’ve worked in the same lab for ten years.” Jemma didn’t sound like she’d gotten that question before.

“Sorry. My bad.”

“I’ll let you get some rest.” Jemma smiled. “Big day tomorrow.”

* * *

 

Sunlight was streaming through the netting at the top of the tent when Daisy awoke the next morning. Sitting up, she wondered what today would bring, considering what the past two days had been like. She unzipped the tent and was about to step out when she noticed a pile of clean clothes folded neatly at the base of the flap that she guessed Jemma had left. According to the labels, the white top with grey raglan sleeves and blue jeans were her size. She didn’t question how. She pulled them in and zipped the flap closed again.

When she emerged a second time, she felt relieved to be out of the clothes that still smelled a little of the decaying gore she had worn the day previously. She wandered through the tents until she found her way back to the center of camp, where she found Coulson standing watch as Fitz and Trip taking apart the red mustang. Coulson glanced at her to see who was approaching, then back to the car.

“Look at them,” he said, as Trip began to siphon out the gas. “Vultures.”

“Maybe we’ll find you something today,” Daisy said with almost a chuckle.

Suddenly there was a woman’s scream coming from the edge of camp. Coulson grabbed a nearby axe, the Fitz and Trip following suit as they ran toward the sound. As Daisy approached unarmed, Charles, carrying a shovel, asked her to watch Robin. Daisy agreed and stayed back, kneeling next to her as her father ran toward the place where there had been a scream. 

* * *

 

When Coulson arrived at the clearing, he was horrified. Not because there was a walker, he was almost used to them by now. It was because it was so close to camp. Ten yards away, there were tents where people slept. Now, at the edge of the woods, a walker was tearing its way through a deer. The doe was on the ground with a few visible bullet holes in its skin, its underbelly a red and tattered mess. Kara stood at the edge of the clearing. It had been her scream, just from the sight of the walker. _No one was hurt,_ Coulson thought with relief. With the sudden cluster of living people, the walker took notice and turned toward Trip, letting out a growl through its bloody, rotting teeth. Trip landed the first blow with his baseball bat. After that, they all just took turns hitting it, but it refused to go down until Coulson swung his axe and severed its head from its body. The four of them shared looks with each other as the caught their breath.

“We haven’t had any up here before, have we?” Fitz asked, a note of panic in his voice.

Coulson shook his head. “No. They never come this far up the mountain.”

“They must be running out of food in the city,” Charles guessed, and headed back into the woods. There was a rustling in the trees across from them, and Garret entered the clearing. He took in the scene.

“Damn,” he said. “I’ve been chasing this deer since dawn.” Daisy emerged in the clearing as Garret crouched next to his kill, examining the gaping hole in its flesh. “You think we could cut around it?”

“It’s too risky,” Trip said. They were all startled when the disembodied head on the ground opened its eyes and resumed its growling.

Daisy took the long metal pipe from Fitz and rammed it down into the head.

“If you don’t get the brain, they can still come back,” Daisy said. She examined all of their blank and puzzled expressions. “I assumed that was common knowledge.” 

* * *

 

The sun was almost directly above the camp when the group was getting ready to go. Fitz stood at the front of the truck, inspecting its engine and its components as the hood was propped open.

“This hose is a perfect replacement for the one that’s broken in your camper,” Fitz told Coulson as he approached, not even looking up.

“You can strip this truck down to its bare bones when we get back, if you want to. But not until we get back,” Coulson replied. “We’re leaving in a few minutes, and we need this to get back into the city.” Fitz nodded, and Coulson headed back to the rear of the truck where the others were loading up what they needed. He heard the hood of the truck slam shut and Fitz joined them shortly.

“Are you sure you don’t need me to come along?” Jemma asked as Trip helped her down from the inside of the truck.

“No, Garret was pretty clear about risking the minimum number of people necessary,” Trip replied. “And for once I actually agree with him.” He turned to Fitz. “You got something to cut through that chain?”

“Of course,” Fitz retorted. Fitz tapped on the pair of wire cutters sitting in the bed of the truck. “Why wouldn’t I?”

“We good?” Daisy asked, trying to diffuse the tension.

“I don’t see why not,” Fitz replied.

“We should get going,” Coulson broke in, looking at his watch and then the sun overhead.

“Well, be safe, all of you,” Jemma addressed all of them and gave Fitz a quick hug. “I’ll be sure to tell the others down in the quarry that you left alright.”  Daisy smiled and disappeared into the cabin of the truck, sliding into the driver’s seat. Coulson said goodbye to Jemma and followed. He opened the passenger side door and found Daisy nervously wringing her hands and staring forward with a worried expression.

“Shotgun,” he said.

“What?” Daisy asked, snapping back to the present. “Oh, yeah, I think Trip put one in the back.” She turned in her seat, scanning their supplies.

“No, I meant… in the sense of… calling dibs on the..” Coulson stopped trying as Daisy turned back to look at him. “I’m just gonna get in.”

She gave him a slight smile, then returned to looking nervous.

“We’re going to get him back,” he said in an attempt to reassure her.

“I don’t doubt that,” she admitted. “I just know he’s not going to very pleased to see me again.”

“I don’t know. After being chained to a roof overnight, I don’t think I’d be upset to see another person.”

Daisy’s faint smile returned. “I know I only just met you, but I’m pretty sure you and Ward are two very, very different people.”

* * *

 

As per Fitz’s directions, Daisy followed train tracks into the city.

“Stop,” Coulson said when they reached a point with a chain-link fence blocking their way. “We walk from here.” They all got out of the truck and Fitz led the way, cutting a hole in the fence with his wire cutters to they could continue forward into Atlanta.

“Where to first, Ward or guns?” Trip asked once they were through.

“Ward,” Coulson replied without hesitation. “The sooner we find him, the better chance there is that he’s still alive.”

“It’s your call, Fitz,” Daisy spoke up. “Which is closer?”

Fitz thought for a moment. “Ward. We’d be doubling back if we went for the guns first.”

“Ward it is, then,” Trip agreed. Fitz nodded, and the others followed as he started for the department store.

* * *

 

“God, I miss my washer,” Ros said, plunging a dirty shirt into the reservoir at the base of the quarry and giving it a scrub. Raina recognized it as Daisy’s. She nodded in agreement as she attempted to get the bloodstains out of Trip’s shirt from the day before.

“I miss my apartment. Air conditioning and cute little potted plants,” Kara added.

“I wouldn’t mind eating food that didn’t come from a can or the woods again,” Raina mused as she stared across the water. On the opposite shore, Jemma was speaking with Charles, who was sat carving something out of wood. His daughter sat a foot or two away, splashing in the shallows.

“Agreed,” Kara said.

Raina started scrubbing at the shirt again, and gestured across the lake. “Somehow, I don’t see an equal division of labor,” she commented.

Kara and Ros looked at where she had pointed out. Ros said nothing about it, nor did Kara, although the latter started scrubbing a pair of jeans a bit too vigorously. Raina decided to take a break from the shirt and grab another article of clothing. She got up off of her crate to get another piece of clothing from the dirty clothes pile. When she sat back down, she noticed Charles had started heading back up the path to the camp, while Jemma was approaching the three of them with Robin.

“Robin would like to help with the laundry,” Jemma explained when she neared. She also mouthed an apology for being late to help. Raina watched as she sat Robin down with a dish towel, then found a seat for herself on a crate next to Ros. She began washing a pair of jeans.

“Where’s Charles going?” Ros asked.

“He said he had something important to do. I told him I’d watch Robin for him,” Jemma replied. “Oh, and the group going into the city left,” Jemma mentioned. “I do hope they stay safe. The city was not a very secure place yesterday.”

“I’m sorry they had to go back. I know, it’s such a shame they had to go back for the guy that they ‘accidentally’ left chained on a fucking roof to die,” Kara spat, almost yelling. Robin started to cry, and Kara stormed off, throwing her wash into the water with a splash. Jemma tried to calm Robin down as best as she could as the rest of them sat in a sullen silence.

“What happened up there, I’m guessing it was pretty bad,” Ros said a few minutes after Robin finally stopped crying.

“As much as I hate to admit it, I don’t think there was anything more that could have been done. We had minutes to get to the ground floor where Daisy was meeting us, walkers were breaking down the doors, and there was no immediate way to get the cuff off. I’m just glad I wasn’t in Trip’s position,” Raina admitted.

“He was beaten half to death with Ward’s gun in his face when Daisy cuffed him,” Jemma added. “If Kara was there, I don’t think she’d be half as keen to have Ward back.”

* * *

 

Trip was the first to enter the department store, the others directly behind him. Now that there weren’t people hunkered down in there, the large quantity of walkers had clearly lost interest. Only one milled about between the racks of clothes, which Trip quietly took care of with his knife. They carefully headed up the stairs, looking out for walkers, but as evidenced by the main room, not many had stayed after getting in.

Finally, they reached the top of the stairs and Fitz cut the chain with his wire cutters. Daisy was the first through the door, followed by Trip, Fitz, then Coulson. They stepped a few feet onto the metal platform before they all froze, struck by the same sight at the same instant.

“Shit,” Daisy said, hardly able to comprehend what she saw. Trip crouched down, his hands on the top of his head, unable to speak. Fitz thought he might be sick, and Coulson just stared at it.

The handcuffs still hung on the pole where they had been attached, but on the ground just next to them, lay Fitz’s hacksaw, both covered in blood. Apart from the severed hand that sat inches away from the cuffs, Ward was nowhere in sight.

 

 


End file.
